First, we should get this on the table: I’m obsessed with presidential pets. Did you know that Teddy Roosevelt’s dog, Pete, once bit the pants off the ambassador to France? I did. Meet me at a cocktail party and I’m apt to tell you that John and Abigail Adams had a puppy named Satan. And Martin Van Buren had two baby tigers at the White House, but Congress made him give them to a zoo. I’ve even written books about Joe Biden’s dog, Major (before the biting incidents came to light) and Mike Pence’s grand-bunny, Marlon Bundo.
Which is why I have to ask this question: What the f— does the Trump administration have against dogs?!
You might remember that Donald Trump himself was one of the few presidents who did not have a pet in the White House. In fact, according to one of his advisors, Trump said that he thought it was “low class” for Mike Pence and his family to bring their pets to the Naval Observatory.
But it’s not just Trump. There’s a disturbing trend in his senior political appointees. And before they are confirmed, we need to figure out exactly what the f— is going on.
Kristi Noem
The most notorious of the dog-haters is, of course, Trump’s nominee for secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. Noem is the current South Dakota governor and the kind of person who watches Old Yeller and roots for the rabies.
This Spring, Noem released a book in which she detailed how she shot her dog, Cricket. In Noem’s own words:
“[Cricket] was out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life. The only problem was there were no hunters nearby to shoot the birds she scared up… The hunt was ruined. I was livid.”
Later that day, Noem lets Cricket ride loose in the back of the truck where, lo and behold, Cricket jumps out and attacks a bunch of chickens. You know, like a dog. And for this, she was summarily executed.
So to be clear: Cricket was killed because she was bad at hunting birds and also really good at hunting birds.
There were a number of potential solutions here. Keep Cricket away from birds. Spend some time training Cricket. Give Cricket to another owner who has the patience to do the first two things. Teach Cricket to play basketball (there’s no rule that says a dog can’t etc. etc. etc.)
But Noem’s Plan A was “shoot the dog.” There was also a goat-murder, but I’ll save that for my next article “What The F–k Is the Trump Administration’s Problem With Goats?”
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
First, let me say that RFK Jr. denies eating a dog.
But when you have to type the words “RFK Jr. denies eating a dog” there’s a good chance it’s because he seems like the kind of guy you could definitely picture eating a dog. According to Vanity Fair, last year RFK Jr. texted a picture to a friend of himself posing with a barbecued something.
Accompanying the photograph was a note suggesting the friend should go to a restaurant in Korea that served dog meat. A veterinarian told the magazine that the skeleton in the picture was in fact a dog’s, due to its skeletal formation.
Now Kennedy has since denied that allegation–telling Fox News it wasn’t a dog at all: “It’s of me at a campfire in Patagonia on the Futaleufu River, eating a goat.”
Whether you believe the medical professional or the man who believes that WiFi causes “cellphone tumors”, one thing is clear: I may be writing that “What The F*ck Is the Trump Administration’s Problem With Goats?” article sooner than I thought.
Dr. Mehmet Oz
It gets worse. So much worse. Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is nominated by the president-elect to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has a history that makes Cruella de Vil look like a member of PETA.
In 2022, Jezebel did a review of 75 studies published by Dr. Oz at Columbia University and found that his research killed over 300 dogs. Ethics of animal testing in general aside, a whistleblower claimed that Oz’s research inflicted needless suffering on the animals and violated the Animal Welfare Act.
And as if the headline is bad enough, the details are far worse. According to the whistleblower, one study ended with a litter of puppies being killed “with syringes of expired drugs inserted in their hearts without any sedation.” They were then left in a garbage bag with their living siblings.
After an investigation, Columbia University was required to pay a $2000 fine for violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act.
Pam Bondi
And finally there’s Trump’s new attorney general nominee Pam Bondi. It feels important to say that Pam Bondi has killed zero dogs. She was, however, once accused of stealing one.
Specifically a Saint Bernard named Tank, whose owners were forced to leave him with an animal shelter to weather Hurricane Katrina. In the wake of the hurricane, countless dogs were separated from their owners, and in the mess that followed, Tank was adopted by Pam Bondi from a shelter in Florida.
So far, that’s nice! The problem came when the owners tracked Tank down, and Bondi refused to give him back. She also renamed the dog Noah, which is not a crime, but it is an objectively worse name than Tank.
There was a year-and-a-half long legal battle, after which the parties agreed on a settlement in which Tank was returned to his previous owners.
There’s something very wrong here. It’s worth noting that, while Trump campaigned by screaming the lie that immigrants were “eating the dogs”, his own choice of Cabinet colleagues makes it clear that their problem was not with the imagined animal cruelty.
So just a warning as we go into 2025: When you see how people treat their dogs, well, don’t be surprised by how they treat you.
Jill Twiss won five Emmys as a writer for Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.
